


The Desk Thief

by Firelizard135



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Ace Detective, Gen, Naoto also holds grudges easily, Naoto gets bored easily, Rise is eaing popcorn and laughing in the background, Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25928224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firelizard135/pseuds/Firelizard135
Summary: After carefully slotting a small book beneath a hopelessly contorted desk leg, Naoto eyes his desk critically and deposits a pencil on it. The pencil rolls away cheerfully. His eye twitches. Forget the "Investigation Team". This "Desk Thief" would rue the day he crossed Naoto's path.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	The Desk Thief

"I... hesitate to ask but..." Naoto shows a rare sign of discomfort as he attempts to level out his desk. "Why is the school's furniture in such a state?"

"Oh, that." One of the students seated near him chuckles nervously. Their chair squeaks piteously. "That's the work of the Desk Thief."

"...'Desk Thief'?"

* * *

During his first day attending Yasogami High at the behest of his grandfather, Naoto Shirogane, the "Detective Prince", learns of the so-called "Desk Thief". An apparent thief who abducts chairs and desks and returns them a few days later in far worse shape than they were beforehand.

Naoto would normally dismiss such tales as nonsense, but it was hard to do so when, on his first day, a faculty member supplied him with a stack of books and told him to make do.

After carefully slotting a small book beneath a hopelessly contorted desk leg, he eyes his crippled desk critically and deposits a pencil on it. The pencil rolls away cheerfully. Naoto's eye twitches. Forget the "Investigation Team". This "Desk Thief" would rue the day he crossed Naoto's path.

* * *

Naoto spends most of his first day thoroughly examining his desk instead of paying attention in class. He has spent the majority of his life in independent study, and loathe as he is to admit it, the "Desk Thief" was far more interesting than the lectures of his teachers. His desk is a mess, quite frankly, he wouldn't have gotten much done anyway. By the end of the day, he has compiled a list of desk "wounds".

> \- Large chunk of near right corner missing. Pattern resembles teeth.  
>  \- Long gouges diagonally from far middle left to near middle.  
>  \- Hairline crack running through desk surface, heavy impact marks.  
>  \- Innumerable scratches.  
>  \- Small burn markings along far right side.  
>  \- Far right leg contorted, signs of extreme heat and impact. Held on by duct tape.  
>  \- Near right leg melted(?!) off near the bottom.  
>  \- Many stains, shows signs of attempted cleaning. Two distinct substances.  
>  > Unknown dark near-black substance, majority of stains.  
>  > Lighter rust colored substance, possibly blood(?!)

Naoto looks around. Many of his classmates have desks in a similar state to his own. One unfortunate student's desk looks as though an entire side has been turned to charcoal.

He turns his attention back to his desk. Clearly, some attempt was made to clean and repair the wretched thing, but dark stains still fill many of the scratches. Most of them appear too dark to be blood, but others...

Curious.

* * *

A week later Naoto has a much clearer picture of the desk theft incidents. Interviews with his peers revealed a wealth of small details, and an abundance of wild fantasies.

Naoto continues to record his findings. It's a good distraction from planning his own kidnapping.

> \- The Desk Thief began his reign of nonsense in early June, unnoticed at first, but obvious in retrospect.   
>  \- Hallway furniture was targeted first.  
>  \- The thief had started with chair-napping, before moving onto desks near the end of the month.  
>  \- The thief targets primarily first-year classrooms, but the occasional second and third-year desk goes missing.  
>  \- Any possessions left in the desk at the time of theft are left neatly on the floor in it's place.  
>  \- Desks are usually returned 3-4 days later (though sometimes not at all), always in the same battered state.  
>  \- (Rumor) If you leave a polite note on your desk every day requesting that the thief not take your desk, he will oblige.

The last rumor puzzles Naoto. He has heard the same thing from multiple sources, including one Rise Kujikawa, one of the "Investigation Team" members and his classmate. She seemed very certain that the rumor was true, but also rolled her eyes and looked faintly exasperated at the subject.

Naoto suspects she knows more, but Kujikawa immediately changed the subject to how cute Seta-senpai is, and Naoto was forced to abandon his interview attempt.

* * *

Another couple days pass and Naoto comes to class to discover a new, intact desk has replaced his old one. Just his desk. None of his classmates have new desks.

Naoto puzzles over this for most of the day, wondering if the it was the Desk Thief or someone else who swapped his table. He visits the other first-year classes to make inquiries, and to his great surprise, finds his desk. He knows that desk well by this point, it's melted legs are somewhat unique among the disfigured furniture of this school.

"Who sits here?" Naoto asks the room, pointing at the desk.

His peers glance at each other nervously until one speaks up.

"Kanji Tatsumi."

* * *

Tatsumi appears to be avoiding him. The next few days seem to confirm this.

Naoto does not have time for this. He is scheduled to be kidnapped any day now.

He reluctantly approaches Kujikawa again to ascertain her teammate's whereabouts.

"He's still avoiding you?"

Yes. And Naoto has urgent questions to ask him.

"Urgent?" She raises an eyebrow at him.

The questions themselves are not urgent, he is just on a strict schedule.

"Hmm... I can try and get him to stay after class tomorrow long enough for you to talk to him?"

* * *

Naoto is kidnapped later that night.

* * *

Naoto much preferred chasing the illusive "Desk Thief" to sitting in a metal room with his yellow-eyed doppelganger.

Honestly, if he dies here, that's going to be his biggest regret.

* * *

Maybe he can come back and haunt the Desk Thief as a ghost. Become one of those idiotic school ghost stories he always loathed.

* * *

Seriously, where is the Investigation Team?! He can't be any harder to find than a desk thief.

* * *

Naoto gets somewhat distracted by all the explosions and lasers.

* * *

"...Besides, the police department is a... male-oriented society..." Naoto trails off.

"...Naoto-kun?"

Naoto has spotted something familiar. Something they have spent far more time thinking about than they ever expected to.

A battered, singed, Yasogami High desk.

Naoto follows the hand that holds it up to it's owner.

"You."

Kanji Tatsumi sputters and turns bright red. The color of _guilt_.

"You're the Desk Thief!" Naoto accuses.

Kanji averts his eyes and attempts to hide the desk behind him. He is a very big person and nearly manages it, but not quite. Rise Kujikawa begins cackling loudly in the background.

"Do you mean to tell me," Naoto continues, "You have been stealing school property- _school desks_ \- to, to fight monsters in another dimension?!"

"I-I gave 'em back!"

"That's- I beg your pardon?!"

It's Naoto's turn to sputter. They look around at the members of the Investigation Team.

"Your teammates are all armed and armored to the teeth. If you have the resources for that, surely you have the resources to get a proper weapon, instead of slowly destroying our school's supply of writing surfaces?!"

One of Kanji's teammates speaks up.

"That's what we've been telling him since _June_." 

"It- I-I just like the balance and weight of the school desks, okay?!"

"And we've told you that's a stupid reason!"

Naoto places their head in their hands. Their shadow pats them on the back sympathetically.

**Author's Note:**

> Kanji's starter weapon is a chair he took from Yasogami High.
> 
> It all just spiraled from there.


End file.
